


Just a Perfect Day

by flippyspoon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22468570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: Billy and Steve have a Sunday off in 1994.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 23
Kudos: 270





	Just a Perfect Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragdragdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragdragdragon/gifts).



> For HFA <3\. Thank you, @dragdragdragon!

_ 1994 _

Sometimes Billy had nightmares and sometimes Steve had nightmares and a lot of times Steve had nightmares _about_ Billy. So Billy woke up early on Sunday morning because Steve had left the blinds open and the sun was already blazing and because Steve, who was spooning him from behind, was whimpering and squeezing unusually hard. He sighed and rolled over to face his boyfriend of seven years, kissing him on the nose when Steve finally blinked at him.

“You okay?” Billy murmured. It was spring in Los Angeles and because they were shy of using the AC and making their electric bill skyrocket, the bedroom was overly warm. But Steve didn’t seem to care and wrapped himself around Billy like an octopus and kissed the old tattoo on his shoulder.

“Mmm yeah,” Steve mumbled. “We have today off. Let’s do something fun.”

Their legs tangled together and Billy smiled wide, hugging Steve close. “That would involve getting out of bed. Potentially. Although I can think of a ton of fun things that definitely involve _not_ getting out of bed.”

“No no!” Steve let go of him and Billy groaned, distressed as Steve sat up, his eyes wide. “No really! Let’s do something fun today!” He stretched and swatted Billy shoulder. They were both naked and the room still smelled like sex and sweat from the night before. “I just wanna go on a run first.”

Billy sighed as Steve’s naked body regrettably left the bed and he grumbled, bracing himself on his arm to watch him slip on his briefs and jogging shorts. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know yet!” Steve said brightly. “We’ll figure it out!”

“Alright,” Billy said, forcing himself to roll out of bed. “I’ll make breakfast.”

Billy did most of the cooking in the house and the boombox they kept on the kitchen counter by the phone sat next to a stack of CDs. But Billy flipped on the radio this time and nodded along to Alice in Chains as he dug through the fridge. There were ingredients for good omelets and he tossed vegetable bags on the counter and took out the eggs and the good cheese.

“This stupid thing…” Billy muttered, eyeing the top of the line bread machine Steve had bought for himself just a few weeks ago, and which he had not used once yet. 

The bulk of Steve’s work in the kitchen usually consisted of buying pricey gadgets that he never used and Billy had spent so much time camped out in the fancy massage chairs at The Sharper Image while Steve tried out everything in the store that every clerk there knew his name. But they let Billy sit and read whatever he’d just bought at Crown Books while his boyfriend shopped because Steve spend an absurd amount of money there from time to time.

Billy put espresso on to brew in the shiny new espresso maker, yet another gadget that Steve had splurged on and then never used himself. He grabbed the bag of English muffins, knowing too well that Steve would want an English muffin after his jog no matter what else was being served. 

He stumbled onto the instruction manual for the bread machine and raised an eyebrow as he perused it, waiting for his espresso. 

“Hmm…” He sat down at the kitchen table, nodding along to Black Sabbath blaring from the boombox as he examined the instructions and some recipes. If they made a run to the store, he thought, he could try the honey wheat recipe…

He was draining his espresso and heard the front door slam and he leaned on his hand, not looking up as Steve, still breathless from his run, came trotting in and headed straight for Gatorade in the fridge. 

“Ooh, are we having omelets?” Steve said. “That sounds good.”

“Yeah... I want to make bread with this stupid thing you bought,” Billy mumbled, and glanced up. Abruptly, his dick swelled in his jeans at the sight of Steve leaning on the fridge, shirtless and sweaty in his tiny jogging shorts as his Adam’s bobbed while he guzzled Gatorade. His impossible hair was mussed and his cheeks were red as if he’d just been fucked. “Shit,” Billy said, hopping up from his chair.. “Is that what you look like when you come back from running?”  
Steve smirked at him and said, “You’re usually still asleep. It used to be the opposite. Funny, huh?”

Steve’s mouth was red and plump and pressed against Billy’s in seconds. Billy pressed up against Steve who laughed, wrapping his arms around Billy’s neck. Steve had a thatch of dark chest hair and Billy raked his nails through it as he licked inside Steve’s mouth and rutted against him, feeling Steve getting hard in his shorts. 

“Hmm...you feel so good, baby,” Billy mumbled, kissing his way down Steve’s throat.

His hands worked their way down to Steve’s shorts to squeeze that pleasantly round ass and for a while they just groped, lazily taking their time until Billy finally fell to his knees and took Steve in his mouth.

“Ah, shit…. Happy Sunday to you too,” Steve murmured, his fingers tangling in Billy’s mass of careless curls that touched his shoulders.

Minutes later, Billy staggered to his feet, grinning at the sight of Steve sated and breathless again as he leaned back against the fridge, looking debauched. 

“I gotta start getting up earlier,” Billy said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and rubbing his jaw. “Catch you coming back from your runs.”

“If you start getting up earlier, we may never leave the house.” 

Billy chuckled at that and fixed Steve an espresso with a cup of milk in it followed by chocolate syrup because Steve was all about his mochas.

“I wanna make bread,” Billy said again, once they were seated at the table, the radio turned down just a smidge as they scarfed down their omelets. “Starting to think you buy all this pricey shit just to trick me into cooking.”

“No!” Steve said, his eyes growing large as if taking legitimate offense. “I just didn’t know the bread machine took three hours. Three hours! I thought you just put the stuff in there and bam, you got bread. And I was going to use the espresso machine but, ya know, you’re better at it.”

“And the pasta maker?” Billy said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah okay, I wanted you to make pasta,” Steve said, smiling despite himself. “But the machine is so cool looking too. Besides, you’ve gotten really good at pesto. It’s better than the stuff at Fiorna’s.”

Billy smirked at that, the familiar feeling of warmth and satisfaction that followed any kind of praise from Steve, even after all these years, was almost as good as an orgasm.

“Fiorna’s needs a better chef,” Billy said. “And I like cooking fine but I ain’t doin’ it for a living. I like my job.”

“”Cause you’re awesome at your job,” Steve said.

Billy had stumbled into becoming a physical therapist by way of receiving a lot of PT following the battle of Starcourt. That he had survived at all, Dr. Owens had called a “miracle.” The miracle to Billy was that the battered, broken body once home to the Mind Flayer had _eventually_ gotten back on its two feet once again after a whole lot of work and the help of multiple physical therapists. It had taken him a year just to be able to use his Zippo again and that was only one example, though it meant something to Billy. 

“You’re awesome at your job too,” Billy said. 

“I mean I manage a restaurant,” Steve said, shrugging. “Not helping people walk again.”

“People gotta eat, babe!” Billy said, smacking Steve in the shoulder.

“I guess.” Steve _sounded_ bothered about it, and it didn’t sit right with Billy as the two of them finished their omelets and put away the breakfast things and Steve sat on counter, sipping his mocha.

Billy stepped between Steve’s swinging legs and narrowed his eyes. “You always help Mrs. Gunderson with her groceries,” Billy said. “I’m the one who pretends I can’t hear her Oldsmobile rattling up the driveway.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve said.

“I’m saying you _help_ people, asshole!” Billy said. “Sure as hell helped me. And the rugrats.”

The “rugrats” had all graduated from college by now, but Billy would never call The Party anything else.

“I’m fine,” Steve said, smiling widely. “But thanks for that.”

“Alright, alright,” Billy grumbled. 

Steve yanked him forward by the collar of his shirt and gave him a kiss. “You’re sweet.”

“Fuck you,” Billy mumbled, smiling against his mouth.

* * *

  
“We can’t bake _bread_ , “ Steve said, throwing up his hands.

Steve kept talking about wanting to “do” something and couldn’t seem to think of what exactly. But since Billy had a shopping list of bread supplies, he considered himself the winner of Sunday.

“Why not?” Billy said. He was jonesing for a cigarette, but having cut down to just two a day and never in the house, he was reduced to chewing Big Red and jogging his leg under the table as he doodled on the post-it.

_Sugar, yeast, wheat bread flour, honey…_

He doodled a jar of jam, nodding along to Black Sabbath.

“It takes three hours!” Steve said.

“So?”

“So we should _do_ something today!” Steve said. “We only get one Sunday off together a month!”  
“What do you want to _do_?” Billy said, for about the tenth time.

“I...don’t know! I just don’t want to waste the day.” He came around the table and raked his fingers through Billy’s hair.

“Well, we don’t have to babysit the goddamn thing,” Billy muttered. “Let’s go to the store and get the stuff, then we can do whatever you want.”

“Okaaaay.”

“If you actually think of something,” Billy said under his breath as he stood up from the table.

“I heard that!”

* * *

“I want cereal.” Billy paused in front of a wall of bright colored boxes and he didn’t miss Steve’s heavy sigh behind him.

“You always buy cereal and you never eat it,” Steve said. He came up behind Billy and rested his chin on Billy’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around his waist. The Super A Market on Pico was far enough west that the sight of two men being affectionate wasn’t too surprising to anyone. 

“But you like cereal,” Billy said, biting his lip as Steve laid soft little kisses at his neck. “You can eat it.”

“Why do you buy it then?” Steve whispered.

Billy knew why. It was because he had always wanted sugary cereals as a boy and he’d never been allowed to have them. Too expensive, too sugary. Then Susan had allowed Max to have a certain amount of Lucky Charms or Froot Loops per week… but that was _Max_ ’s cereal.

Somehow he’d never lost that childish desire and Count Chocula and the Froot Loops toucan still called to him like sirens even when he inevitably ate eggs for breakfast instead.

“Fine,” Steve said, squeezing him tight. “Let’s get some. Besides, I have some weed. It’s good stoner food.”

It took two minutes at the store to find the ingredients for the bread and another forty-five minutes to browse every aisle because Billy liked taking his time at the grocery store, the concept of being free to buy whatever he liked still a ridiculous luxury to his mind, and he knew Steve got a kick out of being the one to spoil him.

“Do you want Cool Whip?” Steve said. He was using the voice that Billy thought of as the “sugar daddy voice.” Billy bit back a smile. They were hanging around in the toy aisle, playing with slinkies.

“For what?”

“Strawberries?” Steve said.

Billy shrugged, pleased that after eight years, Steve still liked to think of little ways to please him. He knew that Billy loved strawberries. He also knew that Steve would likely throw Billy’s favorite candies into the cart when Billy wasn’t looking. “Sure.”

* * *

“I’m gonna start the bread and then we’re gonna smoke that weed,” Billy declared. He took off his shirt and tossed it in the general direction of the kitchen table where it instead landed on Steve’s head.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Steve said, setting aside the offending shirt. “But why the topless cooking?”

“It’s hot in here,” Billy grumbled. He took out a mixing bowl and frowned down at the bread machine instructions again, cranking up Slayer on the boombox.

“Can’t you put on KROQ?” Steve said.

Billy threw him an offended glare in response.

“You can’t look at me like that when you listen to Alice in Chains,” Steve muttered. Billy sighed and flipped on the alternative rock station, not missing Steve’s delighted smile and knowing that he had narrowly avoided a lecture on why his railing against alternative was all talk. “We should go to the movies.”  
Steve had been throwing out suggestions of what to do since they’d come back from the store.

None of the options sounded exciting to Billy.

“There’s nothing good out,” Billy said, shrugging.

“We could see _Speed_ again?”

“I think three times was enough, Keanu.”

Steve snorted and said, “Shut up.”

“Pop quiz, hot shot,” Billy said, earning a chuckle from his boyfriend.

“Shoot the hostage,” Steve said, in his best Keanu voice.

“You’re getting better at it,” Billy said. He grabbed the bread machine instructions and soon enough he’d pressed the dough into its loaf pan and set it to bake. “Five hours.”

“ _Five_ hours!” Steve said. “There goes our whole day.” He pouted and stuck his lip out like a child and Billy rolled his eyes. 

“Jesus Christ, so dramatic. I told ya, we don’t have to babysit the bread. What do you want to do?”

“Ummm…” Steve chewed on his thumbnail. “I’d say go to the park but it’ll be full of babies and kids. And the beach will be a nightmare.”

“No thanks,” Billy said with a snort, though he did not mind kids as much as he pretended to and just as often fantasized about adopting a kid with Steve someday when they were older.

“Hey, there’s a garage sale down the street,” Billy said. “I saw the sign coming back from the store. On the corner of Western?”

“Oh man,” Steve said, his eyes slowly growing larger. “Not a garage sale, Billy. Please.”

“Why not!” He was digging around in the junk drawer for gum. His craving for nicotine reaching dangerous levels and when he found the pack of Big Red, he sighed in relief jammed three sticks of gum in his mouth.

“Because you always buy a whole bunch of shit we don’t need that just ends up at Goodwill three months later,” Steve said gravely.

It was all true but Billy crossed his arms and frowned. “So? You buy stupid bread machines, I buy bullshit. At least _my_ bullshit is cheaper!”

“Ugh.”

“C’mon.” He leaned over and bit Steve’s ear until he yelped. “Let’s go check it out. Then we’ll come back and smoke that weed.”

“And _then_ we’ll figure out something to do,” Steve said.

“Sure.”

* * *

“This is awesome,” Billy said, cackling even as he heard Steve groan next to him.

The garage sale turned out to be at one of the swankier homes in the neighborhood. Billy suspected whoever lived there was an entertainer of some kind, judging by the weird costumes for sale on a rack right next to old jackets and dresses and the random props that filled up two boxes next to the table of books.

“We’re never going to get out of here,” Steve said. But even he seemed curious, kneeling in front of one of the prop boxes and digging through it to find items like an inflatable T-rex and a rubber chicken. “Maybe they’re professional clowns.”

The garage sale took up most of a perfectly manicured front yard. There was a fountain in front and carefully tended roses and the man who sat in an Adirondack chair with a cash box in his lap looked more like a paid butler than the owner of the house.

It was the kind of odd L.A. moment that always had Steve shaking his head, seemingly in shock for weeks afterward, muttering about how L.A. was so much stranger than the Upside Down.

“Oh shit, I’m getting this.” Billy grinned, holding up the cuckoo clock he’d found on a table cluttered with quirky antiques. He flipped the switch in back and the little door above the clock opened, a tiny man slipping out on a track. The little man spun around and pull down his pants. “Ha! This is awesome.”

He looked at Steve expectantly. “Right? _Steve_ , it moons you!”

“Of course,” Steve muttered. “Of course, you found a cuckoo clock that moons on the hour. Oh…” He took a giant pair of sunglasses out of the prop box and slipped them on. “What do you think?”

“Wow, now you really look like Tom Cruise, babe.”

“I’m getting these.”

By the time they were done, they had spent thirty dollars and ended up carrying out a giant box of crap that both of them agreed was completely unnecessary for existence.

“I can’t believe we got a real lava lamp for five bucks!” Steve said, carrying his prize as they made their way back home.

“He was practically giving that Chia Pet away,” Billy said, shaking his head in wonder. “The box hasn’t even been opened!”

“We cleaned up!” Steve crowed.

They hooted and chatted about their purchases all the way back to their rented bungalow with the tiny rectangle of lawn and Steve’s old BMW in the driveway and Billy’s newly acquired Jeep parked on the street. Inside, they dumped their stuff in the living room and Billy went to the kitchen to check on the bread as Steve found a good spot for the lava lamp.

The bread still had a long way to go, but the comforting scent of it made Billy’s mouth water and he smirked to himself, grabbing a Coke on his way back to find Steve, who had set the lava lamp on their cheap old 70’s coffee table that sat in the corner. He was on all fours, his perfect, round ass in the air as he dug around, looking for an outlet.

“Mmm!” Billy knelt behind him and clapped his hands around the globe of Steve’s ass which twitched before he squeezed firmly. 

“You startled me,” Steve said. The lava lamp begin to glow and he straightened up and turned, tackling Billy to the floor. “Dick!” 

Billy laughed and the two of them wrestled on the clean but ugly brown carpeting of their little living room with the rock posters taped to the walls. They knocked into the red velour couch they’d bought on clearance from an outlet store in The Valley and rolled over until Billy was straddling Steve, pinning him down before he captured Steve’s mouth with his own, the wrestling turning to lazy kisses.

“Let’s get high,” Billy whispered.

“Cool,” Steve murmured.

Of the two of them, Steve was the more expert at rolling joints. He could also make a pipe out of an apple with a pen while Billy only watched, amazed. He’d been annoyed to realize that Steve was better at things, but supposed that he had more experience being bored in the middle of nowhere and weed had never been _too_ difficult to find in Hawkins (Jonathan Byers always always knew, Steve often said while rolling his eyes).

They sat in the lush green grass of the backyard, their preferred spot for smoking, because Steve liked to lay in the grass and look up at the sky when he was high and that suited Billy just fine.

Finally, he’d tightly rolled the joint and lit it, taking a good drag. He nodded and handed it to Billy who sat next to him. “Here ya go, babe.”

They each took a couple drags and then Steve lay on his back, chewing his lip as he looked up at the sky. He glanced at Billy expectantly. Billy smiled and lay back, snuggling up to Steve who settled his arm around Billy’s shoulders.

“Tell me a story,” Steve said, before taking another hit.

“A story?” Billy chuckled and rolled to lay on his side so he could rest his hand on Steve’s stomach and sneak his fingers up under the hem of his t-shirt. “What kinda story?”

“I dunno,” Steve murmured. He smelled like Vidal Sassoon shampoo and like the outside because the dryer had broken down, so they hung their laundry out on clotheslines these days and Billy liked the way it made their clothes smell; like _outside_ in a good way, like summer. He nuzzled up to Steve’s shoulder and inhaled deeply. “A good story,” Steve said. 

“Once upon a time there was a knight named...Stevensio-”  
Steve snorted a laugh, but Billy went on.

“And he was very brave and strong and pretty,” Billy mumbled, taking the joint back from Steve. He took a long drag and held it and his head swam. He felt floaty and warm. “And he had to fight an angry, fire-breathing dragon named ah…”

“Billy...agio,” Steve murmured.

Billy cackled at that. “Fine. Okay. Billyagio. And the dragon was super pissed and he creamed the knight-”

“I mean I think the knight gave Billyagio a run for his money,” Steve said.

“Nah, he got demolished. But then the dragon got…” Billy licked his lips and watched Steve smoke. “The dragon fell under the power of a big, evil...monster.”

He wasn’t sure which monster he meant. Either of them, he supposed.

“And when the knight and the dragon met again…”

“They fell in love,” Steve whispered.

Billy ducked his head and kissed Steve and with the high, it truly did feel like they’d left the earth and drifted off into space. Steve hummed in Billy’s mouth and shifted around, carefully putting the joint out into a little stone ashtray they’d brought with them, and leaving it for later. Then he rolled Billy over onto his back and climbed on top of him, his kisses more determined.

“Weed makes you so horny,” Billy murmured.

“I just like um…” Steve was breathless, kissing his way down Billy’s body, and in a hurry he’d unzipped Billy’s jeans and taken his dick out, wasting no time before it was in his mouth. He sucked slowly, looking up at Billy with heavy lidded eyes.

Steve had some kind of _thing_ about blowing Billy when he was high. He’d told Billy he liked that floaty heady feeling coupled with the sensation of Billy’s hot, hard dick filling up his mouth. 

Billy wasn’t one to complain. He threw his head back, his mouth wide open, and stared up at the sky as Steve brought him off.

He was somehow sinking down deep into the earth, way under Los Angeles and beyond even the Upside Down, and he was also out in space with Steve, flying past stars and galaxies…

“ _Ah_!” He jerked and heard Steve’s telltale muffled cough, but he was grinning as he swallowed Billy’s cum, and licked and kissed Billy’s dick until he tucked him away again. Finally, he coughed and cleared his throat and lay down beside Billy again. 

“That was a good story,” Steve said.

Billy burst out laughing and they chatted about nothing in particular for a while, and it was dusk before they finally got to their feet and went back inside.

* * *

“What time is it?” Steve spoke sleepily, stretching as they walked into the kitchen, and making his shirt ride up. Billy wrapped an arm around him and tweaked his belly until he yelped in protest, grinning despite himself. 

“It’s five,” Billy muttered, setting their ashtray with the half-smoked joint on the kitchen table. He glanced at the timer on the bread machine and pumped his fist. “Yes! Bread is _done_! Thank God. Oh fuck, babe, it’s gonna taste so while we’re still a little high. I’ll get honey.”

“It’s _six_ /” Steve whined and slumped down at the kitchen table. “The day’s almost over and we didn’t even do anything!” He stuck his bottom lip out, pointedly sulking.

“What’re you talking about?” Carefully, Billy followed the bread machine directions, taking the bread basket out with a pot holder and turning it upside down onto a plate. He found a bread knife and the butter and set them out on the kitchen table and grabbed sodas from the fridge before he brought the fresh loaf over to Steve and sat down. “We did plenty of stuff today.”

He bit his lip and shook the basket and the bread slipped out clean as a whistle.

“Oh my God,” Steve muttered. “That smells really good. I don’t know. I wanted us to have like...a special day, I guess.”

Billy snorted as he cut them two thick slices of warm, fresh bread and slathered them with butter and drizzled some honey. He handed Steve his slice and took a bite of his own.

It had to have been the best bread he’d ever tasted.

The weed probably helped.

“I did have a special day,” Billy said with his mouth full. He swallowed and said, “We had breakfast together which we never get to do. We made bread, we found that rad garage sale, we fooled around, got high… Unless you want to go somewhere, I thought we could rent a movie tonight? Whatever you want. Then you’re gonna fuck me into the mattress.” He winked. “Perfect day.”

“Yeah?” Steve grinned. “I guess it was a pretty good day, huh? I was just kinda thinking about it all week because we don’t always have Sundays off together. So I wanted to do something. But I guess we did do stuff.”

“It’s…” Billy cleared his throat and blushed. He had been about to say something schmaltzy and changed his mind.

But of course, Steve knew that. He was already halfway through his bread and he nudged Billy. “ _What_? What is it?”

“It’s always a perfect day if I’m with you,” Billy mumbled. “You know that. Asshole.”

Steve positively beamed and Billy felt warm and fuzzy again, like he always did when Steve lit up like the sun because of _him_.

“This is really good bread,” Steve said. “Thanks for making it.”


End file.
